I have been writing on this blog about how Dallas County juries have shifted over the years from pro-defense to pro-plaintiff, or at least to a point where most prospective jurors in Dallas County don’t necessarily consider lawsuits a bad thing. In the era of tort reform, this attitude among prospective jurors in Dallas
“Do It Yourself” Contracts Do Not Necessarily Save You Money
Contracts are important and “the devil is in the details.” Too often I see business owners and experienced entrepreneurs come to me as first time clients with a serious problem. But when we go to review the contract that is at the heart of the issue, I often find that the contract was not professionally
Cannabis Legalization and Professional Conduct in Texas
Election 2016
Marijuana ballot initiatives won big on election night 2016. As recently reported in the Washington Post, voters in California, Massachusetts and Nevada approved recreational marijuana initiatives. And, voters in Florida, North Dakota and Arkansas just approved new medical marijuana initiatives. Washington
Loose Lips Sink Ships
Loose lips sink ships!
The Texas Fifth Court of Appeals at Dallas recently held that a settlement party’s loose talk about settlement terms violated the confidentiality provision of a settlement agreement and excused the other party from making the remaining settlement payments. Opinion
The
Surprising Reasons for Health Care Liability Lawsuits.
As most people who know me know, I am a registered pharmacist in addition to being a lawyer. After graduating from the University of Rhode Island College of Pharmacy in December 1992, and passing the Rhode Island pharmacist licensure exam in February 1993, I practiced pharmacy in various settings until graduating SMU’s Dedman School of
Is the Practice of Law Like the NHL?
My father recently sent me a N.Y. Times article describing how the game of professional hockey and the NHL have changed in the last twenty years. According to veteran sports writer Dave Caldwell, the NHL has changed from a game that was equal parts speed and obstruction/fighting to a game that primarily is about
Think Before You Tweet: Your Audience Is Larger Than You Might Realize
Before becoming a lawyer, I spent a couple of years working in media relations for a university athletic department. For those who don’t know, the media relations team is essentially the PR wing of the sports organization.
At the time, Twitter was coming onto
Hiring Outside Counsel To Conduct Internal Investigation Does Not Shield Results From Disclosure
Communications between an attorney and client are privileged, right? As iron-clad as we think the attorney-client privilege may be, there are limits.
Ian Meklinsky at Fox Rothschild LLP shared an interesting case with me this morning where a federal judge in New Hampshire ordered the production of the reports prepared by outside counsel following an
Sabermetrics for lawyers?
Baseball is at its greatest in October. In baseball, statistics rule. People analyze stats to predict the future. Just about everyone accepts that a hitter is valued by the hitter’s batting average. A hitter’s batting average is the number of hits divided by the number of at-bats. That’s easy enough, but it gets a little
The Middle Seat and Client Confidentiality
The other day it struck me that airline seats are getting smaller, especially the middle seat. On that certain low-fare airline that provides frequent service between Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio, I long ago decided that a middle seat in the front is better than an aisle or window seat in the rear. On